CAIRO, May 9 (Xinhua) -- No Israeli prime minister
can swim against the main stream, and the incumbent Benjamin Netanyahu, who is
scheduled to visit Egypt Monday, will have to accept the two-state solution in
the end, said former Egyptian Ambassador to Israel Mohammed Bassyoni.
In an interview with Xinhua on Saturday, Bassyoni
said he expected the United States to impose strong pressure on Israel to let
the latter accept a Palestinian statehood.
"(U.S. President) Barack Obama suggests and supports
the two-state solution," he said. "First, Obama will try to persuade Netanyahu
to abide by the two-state solution; if it fails, he will start to impose
pressure on him."
During a visit to Turkey in early April, which aimed
at rebuilding the strained ties with the Muslim world, Obama stressed that his
administration is determined to help reach a two-state solution to the
Israeli-Palestinian conflict, with Israel and a Palestinian state coexisting in
peace and security.
But the overture fell on deaf ears of the
right-leaning Israeli government. Obama's special envoy to the Middle East
George Mitchell, who has toured the region in mid-April and collected unanimous
endorsement from the Arabs, got little lip service from Netanyahu to the
two-state guideline and an vague "new approaches" from the hardline Foreign
Minister Avigdor Lieberman.
Netanyahu, who spoke from Israel via satellite to the
American Israel Public Affairs Committee's annual conference in Washington, said
on Monday night that "We are prepared to resume peace negotiations without any
delay, without any preconditions. The sooner, the better."
The prime minister's fresh approach involves a triple
track toward peace between Israel and the Palestinians, namely a political
track, a security track and an economic track.
But Netanyahu, who has been in favor of "economy for
peace" since his election campaign, fell short of mentioning the widely accepted
two-state idea.
Netanyahu is due to meet Obama in Washington on May
18, when a bargaining on the solution is expected to top the agenda.
Though the prime minister has turned his back on the
two-state guideline, Israeli Deputy Foreign Minister Daniel Ayalon said earlier
that Israel would accept a comprehensive peace agreement with the Palestinians
that will entail a two-state solution.
According to the spokeswoman of Israeli embassy in
Cairo, Netanyahu will meet Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak on Monday noon in
Egyptian Red Sea resort of Sharm el-Sheikh.
Israeli government officials said the upcoming trip,
the first one for the prime minister since his taking office in late March, is a
symbolic move designed to signal the importance Netanyahu places on relations
with Cairo and moderates in the Arab world.
An Israeli official said Netanyahu's Egypt visit
comes even before his trip to the United States, showing how important he feels
the ties with Egypt are.
Egyptian-Israeli relations were strained earlier in
the year by the appointment of Avigdor Lieberman as Israel's foreign minister,
whose bold remarks have soured Israeli relations with the Arab country.
As for the well-planned meeting, Bassyoni said that
talks between the two sides would focus on the two-sate solution.
"They will discuss the peace process and how to
achieve it, in addition to exchanging views on the two-state solution," Bassyoni
said.
The former ambassador also said that the Arabs want
to achieve comprehensive peace with Israel, ending settlement activities,
removing the mass destruction weapons from Middle East region and halting the
Israeli attempts to make Jerusalem a Jewish city.
Arab foreign ministers decided at an emergency
meeting held in Cairo Thursday to seek a ruling by the UN's International Court
of Justice on Israel's Judaising actions in East Jerusalem, but refused to
overhaul the Saudi-proposed Arab Peace Initiative issued at an Arab summit held
in Beirut in 2002.
Despite that, "the Arabs are flexible and they are
insisting on the Arab (Peace) Initiative," Bassyoni said.
GAZA, May 9 (Xinhua) -- A spokesman for the deposed
Hamas government in Gaza said Saturday that Hamas would restore truce if Israel
and the Palestinian factions reach a ceasefire agreement.
Taher al-Noono said in a statement sent to reporters
that there are Egyptian efforts to reach a mutual ceasefire (with Israel) in the
Gaza Strip, adding "the government is ready to keep it." Full story
GAZA, May 9 (Xinhua) -- Islamic Hamas movement on
Saturday said that success of the inter-Palestinian dialogue, mediated by Egypt,
depends on stopping the U.S. intervention.
Salah al-Bardaweel, a senior Hamas leader in Gaza,
rejected "the U.S. interventions" which seek to get his movement accepting
international demands of recognizing Israel and renouncing violence. He also
said that Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas "unluckily supports the U.S.
bids." Full story
RAMALLAH, May 7 (Xinhua) -- A Palestinian independent
lawmaker on Thursday called on the United Nations to impose sanctions on Israel
for "the war crimes its army committed in the Gaza Strip."
Mustafa Barghouti, also the Secretary General of the
Palestinian National Initiative, said in a statement that "the UN should make
firm resolutions against Israel for the war crimes it committed against the Gaza
Strip population." Full story
